Photo of whale by David Gallan: "Whales are iconic and fully deserve protection. But what about the rest of Australia's species?"

But several comments on the article pointed out that population decline as a result of habitat loss is affecting a swag of species and that koalas get unfair attention because they’re cute and cuddly.

That’s, of course, true. But humans are emotional beings and it’s natural that iconic species that capture the imagination – whether they inspire affection because of being cute or, like whales, awe due to their sheer size – will receive more attention. This emotional attachment could be one reason why Minister Frydenburg chose to speak up on whales. A cynic might say that whales are an easy target, because little meaningful action will follow the rhetoric as they inhabit distant oceans.

But let’s focus on those less sexy species that don’t receive so much attention and the consequences of habitat loss to them. Loss of bushland due to land clearing has been listed as a 'Key Threatening Process' (KTP) under Federal law and NSW State law since 2001. A KTP is a process that plays a particularly large role in driving species to extinction. It’s rare for a threatened mammal species to not be either currently or historically affected by land clearing.

Photo of cleared forest by Dr Sweeney: "Australian temperate forests are a 'crisis ecoregion' and clearing them drives species declines"

Besides driving declines in entire populations of species, land clearing kills individual animals. Lots of them. According to WWF, legal clearing in NSW between 1998 and 2005 killed 104 million animals. That’s 11 million mammals, 13 million birds and over 80 million reptiles. Bush Heritage estimates that for every 100 hectares of land cleared, between 1,000 and 2,000 birds die of exposure, starvation and stress. In contrast, the NSWNative Vegetation Act 2003 saves the lives of 53,000 animals every year due to a reduction in land clearing.

Yet, unlike with whales, he has the ability to take meaningful action on this national crisis. In fact, as Federal environment minister, many Australians would think that he has a duty to act in the national interest, protect the environment and minimise the impact of KTPs.

Those that commented on the op-ed were right. We do need to protect iconic animals like koalas and whales, but we can’t ignore all the other species that have a low profile. The minister should take meaningful action for those animals by reigning in land clearing and accelerating National Park establishment.